


Backup

by indiefic



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 14:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4438967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indiefic/pseuds/indiefic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mostly, Sarah trusts him to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Backup

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, given how Derek's character arc turned out, this is a bit of a ... *SAD TROMBONE*. But when I wrote it, it seemed like a thing.

“I’ll be back,” John is already sliding out of the Jeep as he says it, his eyes fixed in the distance, hands shoved in his pockets. He lopes up the road, shoulders slumped, no doubt on his way to meet with Riley.

No one says anything, not even the metal, and for that, Derek is grateful. He doesn’t want any of her observations or speculation. He unloads the Jeep, watching as Sarah trudges up the stairs into the house.

The trip to Mexico was rough on all of them. For him, the worst part was enduring the ride in the Jeep alone with John’s pet metal. Sarah had it considerably tougher. Bruises are starting to form on the exposed skin of her neck and arms. Sarah hasn’t offered and no one has dared to ask exactly what happened for the hours she was alone with Cromartie.

Sarah keeps it together most of the time, keeps it locked down behind her cast iron bitch façade. While it’s a convincing mask, Derek knows it’s just that, a mask. Somewhere in there, Sarah Connor is fallible and breakable as any human. She alternates between busting John’s balls and treating him like a child. The truth is, she’s terrified. Terrified and trying like hell to keep from coming apart at the seams. Derek knows that feeling well. He knows what it’s like to be saddled with a resentful adolescent who acts like you’re the source of all his problems, like you chose this life and inflicted it upon him. He knows what it’s like to want to walk away and never look back.

But you don’t. Because underneath all the annoyance and irritation, you love them more than they could ever imagine. Derek wonders which is worse, him losing Kyle or Sarah losing John. As it turns out, the human resistance would be equally screwed in either scenario. But at least Derek could rage at the machines. He could focus all his wrath on them for literally tearing Kyle away from him, dragging him down the tunnels underneath City Hall. Sarah doesn’t have that luxury. She is losing John bit by bit, day by day.

As much of a pain in the ass as Sarah can be, some days Derek wants to grab his nephew and shake him until his teeth rattle out of his head. Skynet’s breathing down their fucking necks and John’s taking unnecessary risks, stupid risks, acting like he only has himself to worry about when he knows damn well that the fate of the future depends on his survival. John may logically understand what’s at stake, but he doesn’t _know_. John is going to lose so much more than he ever imagined. And nothing can prepare him for that.

It’s half an hour before Derek’s done unpacking everything. Tucking his pistol in the waistband at the small of his back, he heads inside. The metal is standing in front of the windows that look out on the porch, watching. Watching for what, Derek neither knows nor cares.

* * *

 

He walks to the doorway of the master bedroom and stands there watching. Sarah sits on the end of the bed in the dark, staring at nothing. He walks into the room and crosses its width to the master bathroom. Flipping on the light, he turns on the tap in the sink.

He returns to the bed and reaches down, gently grasping Sarah’s forearm, careful of the bruises. “Come on.”

The look she gives him is absolutely black, but before she can say the venomous words that are on the tip of her tongue, he cuts her off.

“Just get up and follow me.” He looks at her, really looks at her, making eye contact without turning it into a staring contest.

To both of their shocks, she relents, letting him pull her to her feet and then following him into the bathroom.

The water is hot and Derek takes her hand, holding it under the flow. She winces, but doesn’t pull away. Her hands ache, both of them. They ache from the gash and from the recoil of the rifle. They ache from smashing the chip to bits. Mostly, they ache from trying so hard to hold on to John – and failing miserably.

Derek lathers up the soap and gently, but thoroughly, washes the wound and rinses it clean. Turning off the water, he pats her hand dry with a towel. He presses the towel into her palm, motioning for her to hold the pressure there.

Sarah watches him rummage through her medicine cabinet. As usual, he doesn’t ask for permission and he doesn’t acknowledge that he should. Sarah wonders if this is something Judgment Day did to Derek Reese or if he always lacked personal boundaries. She suspects it’s the latter.

She watches as he extracts gauze, rubbing alcohol and surgical glue. “I could do this, you know.”

“Any five year old could do this,” he says. He looks up, staring directly into her eyes. “But we both know you won’t. And that’s fucking stupid.”

She glowers at him. “Are you calling me stupid?”

“Yes,” he replies flatly. He takes her hand again, pulling the towel away and making sure it’s stopped bleeding. He then wets the gauze with the alcohol and wipes down the wound. “If you don’t dress the wound, it’ll take longer to heal. It’s a liability and we don’t need any more of those.”

Derek glances up at her, but doesn’t stop what he’s doing. He paints the surgical glue over the jagged edges of skin and then pulls her palm up to his face, blowing on the glue to dry it.

His lips are pursed into an “o” as he blows. He watches her as he does it. Sarah is acutely aware of his fingers against her wrist, of the way he smells like sweat and gunpowder. It shouldn’t be a comforting smell, but it is.

How long has it been since she’s had someone to confide in? Never. There were times over the years when John was small and she was so damn scared and lonely. She just wanted a partner who would protect John as fiercely as she would, who could help her shoulder the burden. But there never was anyone who could fill that bill. At least no one who wasn’t relegated to her memories.

She eventually quit looking. She thought she’d quit wanting it, but the weird pull in the pit of her stomach as she looks into Derek’s eyes tells a different story. And that scares the hell out of her.

She shifts her weight nervously from foot to foot and the second he stops blowing, she snatches back her hand, pretending to critically inspect his work.

Derek watches her for a beat, then another. “You were pretty brutal to Ellison.”

“Life is brutal. I’m just honest.”

Derek’s expression is unreadable. “He wants to help.”

“He won’t be a help. All he’ll be is dead.”

Derek cants his head to the side, watching her. “You chase them all off. Ellison. Dixon. Neither of them think they have anything left to lose. They’d die for you, for your cause. But you send them away.”

“I don’t want anyone to die for me,” she says, turning on her heel and walking back into the bedroom.

Derek leans against the bathroom’s door jamb, arms crossed over his chest. “You’ve never tried to chase me off.”

“I’ve never tried to keep you close either,” she counters, sinking down onto the end of the bed again. “You don’t have a room here.”

“You know what I mean.”

She shakes her head and looks away at the far wall. “You’re different. John listens to you.” It’s true, but evasive.

“John listens to Dixon.”

“Not like he does to you,” Sarah replies quietly.

Derek stands there for several moments and then pushes off from the wall, stepping closer. He nods to her hand. “How does it feel?”

“It hurts like a sonofabitch.”

Derek smiles. He closes the distance between them and drops down into a squat in front of her, not touching. “I don’t intend to die for you, Sarah Connor,” he says softly.

She looks at him and then at her wounded hand. Gently, she presses the tips of her fingers against his chest, over the healing bullet wound. “You almost did.”

Derek looks down at her fingers and slowly brings up his hand, covering her fingertips with his own, not holding, just barely touching. “I don’t think I ever said thank you.”

Sarah looks at him. “No, you didn’t.”

He smiles. He leans forward and she reflexively turns away, but she doesn’t pull back. He stops. She can feel the heat of his breath against her cheek. His hand closes around hers and he leans forward. She feels the moist press of lips and tongue against her jaw. She shudders. Her fingers against his chest fist in the material of his shirt. They both know she wants to push him away.

He moves, shifting forward onto his knees, his torso now between her legs. He uses his free hand to cup the side of her face, to hold her still as he nips along her jaw, kisses down her neck, his stubble rough face scratching her skin. She releases a long, shuddering breath, threading her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer. Her reaction to his touch is deeply unsettling. She wants it. She wants more. Even as much as she fucking hates him some days, as many times as she has honestly promised to kill him – she wants this.

Derek is different and he knows it. In her rigid operating manual, he’s the one exception. Sarah trusts Derek as much as she is capable of trusting anyone, which isn’t much, but a hell of a lot more than most.

She trusts Derek to make the cold, calculating decisions, to call her on her bullshit and to kick John’s ass when he needs it.

She trusts Derek to always have his own agenda, to push her buttons, to hate the metal and to lie about everything under the goddamn sun.

Mostly, she trusts him to live.

He survived Judgment Day, a boy no older than John. He did it where so many billions failed. He’s seen the end. He understands the priorities. She knows there is nothing more important in this world to Derek Reese than his family.

Sarah trusts Derek to put John ahead of everything – ahead of her, ahead of his skeevy girlfriend he has holed up downtown that he thinks she doesn’t know about, even ahead of himself. Derek proved unflinchingly that he’ll kill to protect John. Sarah needs to know that there is another person who will protect John at all costs.

That is why she makes the exceptions for Derek that she’s never made for anyone else. It’s a very real possibility that she’s going to die. Her greatest fear is of leaving John unprotected. She doesn’t want John to be alone in this world. She wants him to have family, to have a connection.

Derek is her fail safe. Her backup. He has to live. In case she doesn’t.

Unbidden, a tear slips down her cheek. Derek kisses it away, toppling her back on the bed. She doesn’t argue. She pulls him closer, tugging his shirt over his head. He obliges, shrugging out of it and tossing it away. She’s so fucking tired and so fucking lonely and all she wants right now is some authentic human connection, even if she’ll hate herself in the morning.

[End]


End file.
